Pea Soup

Cecil B. De Mille was once so busy that he asked Pauline Kessinger, the head of the studio commissary, to make his lunch selections for him. She agreed and began serving him a bowl of split-pea soup, a piece of custard pie, and a glass of milk every Monday - until, one day, the kitchen ran out of peas. When De Mille arrived with his entourage, Pauline approached their table in a panic. "I'm very sorry, Mr. De Mille," she said, "but I'll have to give you something else today. I think I'm going to have to fire the chef because we ran out of peas." De Mille smiled and gave her an enormous hug. "Honey, may I tell you something?" he asked. "I hate split-pea soup." Kessinger was stunned. "But Mr. De Mille," she exclaimed, "why have you let me serve it to you for twenty years!?" "You seemed to be so pleased with that choice," he gently replied, "I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

One day in New York City, Morgenbesser ( Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University ) put his pipe in his mouth as he was ascending the subway steps. A policeman approached and told him that there was no smoking on the subway. Morgenbesser pointed out that he was leaving the subway, not entering it, and that he had not yet lit up. The cop repeated his injunction. Morgenbesser repeated his observation. After a few such exchanges, the cop saw he was beaten and fell back on the oldest standby of enfeebled authority: "If I let you do it, I'd have to let everyone do it." To this the old philosopher replied, "Who do you think you are—Kant?" His last word was misconstrued, and the whole question of the Categorical Imperative had to be hashed out down at the police station. Morgenbesser won the argument.

Relativity

In November 1919, shortly after Albert Einstein's theory of relativity was confirmed by observations made from the island of Principe during an eclipse (light was shown to have been bent by gravity as Einstein had predicted), Sir Arthur Eddington, an early advocate of relativity, was approached by Ludwig Silberstein at a joint meeting of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society.
"Professor Eddington," Silberstein declared, "you must be one of three persons in the world who understands general relativity." When Eddington demurred, Silberstein continued: "Don't be modest, Eddington."

"On the contrary," Eddington replied. "I am trying to think who the third person is!"

Mystery of the Universe?

"There is a wonderful photograph of Albert Einstein [taken in 1953] by Ernst Haas which shows him rubbing his chin in a pensive mood, apparently contemplating the mystery of the universe. In fact the picture was taken immediately after Haas had asked Einstein where he had shelved a particular book."

Einstein at Princeton

"At Princeton, Albert Einstein was more like a kindly uncle. When he arrived in 1935, and was asked what he would require for his study, he replied: 'A desk, some pads and a pencil, and a large wastebasket - to hold all of my mistakes.'"

[To avoid embarrassment, Einstein's salary request was raised by Princeton administrators.]